


Never Found The Right Day

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: was and is and will be dear [2]
Category: North and South - Ambiguous Fandom, North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: what is that wish that you never did make?the one lost to the winds and the honest mistakesyour one dream that never found the right dayoh I’ll love you forever so don’t go away"It’s nice to have this place going again. I’m already enjoying being your boss, Mr Thornton.”





	Never Found The Right Day

**Author's Note:**

> you, being nice about yt,am: will there be a sequel? :)  
> me, throwing my revision notes out of the window: absolutely. i love you.
> 
> title and verse in summary from gone gone by tom rosenthal

Margaret cannot help but feel that she’s been wearing black for wholly too long. Not, however, that this signifies a resolution on her part to deck herself in rainbows and dance down the high street; rather that handing Mr Bell into the custody of Silverston Nursing Home feels entirely like her third funeral in six months.

It isn’t, of course, as Mr Bell is happy to remind her. “You aren’t getting rid of me yet,” he tells her with that same mischievous glint in his old, sharp eyes that he had when he would tease her as a child. “I shall simply be sunning myself here, waited on hand and foot by some _very_ charming young nurses.”

“Most of the nurses here are in their forties, Mr Bell,” Margaret says, with a look that is both amused and chiding.

“I know, I know,” he sighs, but gleefully, like he’s been hoping she’d say that. “And me in my eighties. I’m a dreadful cradle-robber, and no mistake.”

Margaret rolls her eyes and takes his last bag out of the taxi. It’s a slow journey into the lobby where some staff are waiting to escort him to his new rooms; they are both willing to pretend that the bag is heavy and Margaret can’t manage it rather than acknowledge that Mr Bell’s long, clear stride has shortened into a horrible, agonisingly slow hobble.

“You’ve spoken with my attorney, haven’t you, my dear?” Mr Bell says, a little quiet and unusually hesitant.

“Yes,” she says, hefting the bag and ducking her head. “And I’m seeing him again this afternoon.”

Mr Bell nods, satisfied. “Good. Good. You’ll have to look at Marlborough Stores. It’s going under, you know, you’ll need a new tenant.”

Margaret’s throat tightens. “I know,” she gasps out.

There is a silence to her right. “I’ve told you that already, haven’t I,” Mr Bell says, with uncharacteristic sadness.

 _Twice today alone,_ Margaret thinks, but won’t even dream of saying. Adam Bell is putting a brave face on it, but he hates any reminder of what is happening to him. She nods jerkily and tries not to cry.

The staff are almost too friendly, too helpful - they divest Margaret of her one task before she can object, leaving her hands empty and grasping for something to hold. Mr Bell is situated in his new rooms entirely too quickly, and there are nurses everywhere so she can’t get to him, and then they’re all gone and they are alone and it is considerably worse.

“Yes,” Mr Bell says, looking about him at the room. “It’s just like a holiday resort, my dear. It will do wonderfully.” Margaret rubs her eyes as swiftly as she can, but he spots her anyway. “Don’t fret, dearest Margaret.” He places one hand on her shoulder and offers her a half-smile. “You shall visit me endlessly in my holiday-retirement, and I shall rest easy, knowing that such a clever young lady is in charge of all my affairs. Few can plan their exit from this world so greatly to their satisfaction.”

Margaret musters up a watery smile, which seems to comfort him. “I shall be down to see you as often as you like. You can show off Oxford from your verandah.”

Mr Bell laughs. “How very tropical. I’d have run off to Argentina, you know, only nobody does that these days but disgraced Nazis, so I shall do my best from here.”

Margaret pushes up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“There, now,” he says, made of the same old-school stuffiness as her father that doesn’t really know what to do with emotion. The similarity makes her heart hurt. “Run along back to Milton and do wonderful things with your inheritance.”

Margaret nods, plastering on her best smile and adjusting her bag on her shoulder. Mr Bell gives her that familiar half-smile and gently claps her shoulder.

“Oh, and Margaret?” he calls as she’s leaving. “Give my best to your parents, won’t you?”

She digs her fingernails into the heels of her palms with enough force to leave dark purple indentations. “Of course,” she gasps, and then has to flee, vision blurring with tears for her parents and godfather, equally lost to her.

* * *

Margaret is now entirely apprised of her inheritance and holdings. She owns shares in things she’s never heard of, she half-owns a prolific record label specialising in prog rock, her bank balance makes her dizzy - and she hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with it. It’s rather splendid to imagine, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling of her run-down apartment, the penthouse suite she could have, or the small French chateau she could buy; but she doesn’t actually want or need them and spending money for its own sake is frankly offensive.

The meeting with the attorney had gone rather well, really, horrendously awkward though it could have been. Henry Lennox had been professional, even civil, seeming to try for a fresh start between them, and Margaret had been so relieved to find him not furthering his advances that she hadn’t even remembered to be cross with him for last time. He’d explained the state of her finances (good) and prospects (even better) and had helped her to dedicate a large portion of her income to the local Milton poor relief and to place most of her inheritance from her mother in the hands of Cancer Research. Then Henry had explained the state of Marlborough Stores: what with the strikes and increasing competition with Watson’s - whose owner has unearthed some long-forgotten Bitcoin or something and is currently burning through those profits as fast as he can - the department store would have to attract some capital or close, leaving Margaret to find a new tenant.

“It shouldn’t be difficult,” Henry had told her, seeming to think this comforting and instead coming off as cold.

“It will be for the Thorntons,” she had objected, her concerns waved away by Henry.

So she lies, now, on the flat of her back in bed, obsessively turning over the idea which her brain is presenting as an incontrovertible truth: the Thorntons must not be removed from Marlborough.

She ought to be supporting local business, anyway, she thinks as she turns over, trying to get comfortable. She would hate for it to be replaced with a Starbucks, or Debenhams.

And the staff would be out of a job, which would be dreadful, she thinks, watching the blinds sway slightly.

And - it wouldn’t be the same, without John.

She hasn’t seen him these past seven months, what with being in London so that her mother could be near her sister in her last hours, and then staying to see Edith’s baby, and then burying her father in a plot beside his wife after he had simply given up on eating and sleeping and living in a world without Maria Hale. Freddie had come over for the funerals, unable to escape his job in Spain for too long, but he had been a comfort. Then, when he’d gone home, she’d gone to stay with Mr Bell in Oxford until it had become clear to them both that his particular mix of diabetes, old age and dementia required care Margaret was simply not able to give.

She hasn’t missed John, either. She’s been far too busy with the business of death, emotions too tied up in grieving to think on the nice young man who had professed to like her, once.

Margaret wonders if he’s missed her before she can stop herself, and turns over crossly, screwing her eyes shut. It doesn’t matter. And the idea of an... _anything_ right now, on top of managing her new fortunes and recovering from the worst year of her life and her poor neglected journalism job, is exhausting.

Her poor heart keeps hoping, though. Just a bit. She tells herself it’s vanity and goes to sleep.

* * *

“Good morning, Mrs Thornton. How are you?”

Mrs Thornton turns and looks down her nose at Margaret. This isn’t hard, considering how much taller she is than Margaret, but it always feels like the old woman is putting a little extra effort into it to make a point. “Miss Hale. I hear you are our new landlady.”

Margaret bridles at the unspoken, barbed _congratulations._ “I’d rather not be. It’s been rather painful.”

Mrs Thornton looks rather mollified and almost sympathetic, which is a little disconcerting. “I was sorry to hear of your parents’ passing, and of Mr Bell’s - condition.”

Margaret nods, looking away at the dark shelves. The store is closed and empty whilst its fate is decided, and plastic and metal has never contrived to look so sad. “Is John around?”

“Come to gloat?” the older woman snaps.

Margaret recoils, frowning. “No! Never. Mrs Thornton, you don’t know me at all; but you needn’t assume the worst of me all the time.”

“He’s not here,” she admits, heavily. “I don’t know where he’s gone.”

Margaret nods and pushes through the doors, heavy without their usual electrical assistance. She can’t pretend to know better than his own mother where he might be, so she indulges in a walk to a local park. Margaret found herself oddly missing this tiny, cramped, irregularly-shaped garden, even while walking in Regent’s Park, or rounding Speaker’s Corner. She likes the natural ponds and tangled rhododendrons that choke light from the paths and drop sticky bright flowers to the floor below. There’s a controlled wildness that she’s learned to love since moving to Milton, and she’s pleased to find the garden largely unchanged.

She rounds a corner, looking down at the daisies at her feet, and has to dodge someone coming the other way with a mumbled “excuse me.”

“Margaret?”

Her head snaps up. “John?” For there he is, in all his casual glory. He smiles at her and it takes her a moment to figure out how to return it. “Sorry, it’s just - I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in jeans before.”

John ducks his head, huffing a laugh with a bright flash of teeth and plucking at his hoodie. It’s far more endearing than it has any right to be. “I’m not so worried about what to wear to work anymore, since I don’t have a job.”

“You mean your mother isn’t,” Margaret says, hoping for another grin. She’s surprised to discover that those, she has missed.

He obliges her and she grins back. “Alright, I do.” Then he sobers, and she braces. “I heard. I’m so sorry.”

Margaret looks away, shrugs one shoulder lopsidedly. “Me, too. I know you liked my father.”

There is a horrible, awkward silence to which she has become all too accustomed in these long months of dying and grieving.

“What are you doing here?” she says at last, determinedly brightening. “I always thought no-one else knew about this park.”

John rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “You, ah, mentioned it. Once. I thought I’d see what the fuss was about.”

Margaret frowns. “I did?”

“Yes - I had come to see your father and he asked where you’d been. You said - here, and that it was beautiful.” He shrugs, ears tipped slightly red.

She thinks, but can’t remember it. The thought hurts slightly - to forget yet another conversation with her father. “I told him about the rhododendrons here - they grow really well on the sandy soil where we used to live - but… I suppose I must have.”

John offers her a sheepish smile and pulls a single white blossom from his hoodie pocket. He makes a mock half-bow and presents it to her. “My lady,” he says, voice pleasantly low and rumbling.

She smiles almost despite herself. “Thank you,” she replies with feigned archness. “Fred used to put these in my hair and call me a princess when we were young,” Margaret says, twirling the flower between two fingers until the dark dots inside the trumpet blur. “Took forever to wash them out again.”

“Fred?” John says, with a casualness that seems rather forced.

“My brother,” Margaret explains. She’s too busy watching the flower turn to see his relief. “He lives in Spain, now.” Then she looks up at him and smiles. “I think I’m too old for flowers in my hair now, don’t you?”

John shrugs, eyes sparkling. “Whatever you say, your majesty.”

She swats his arm, fighting a smile and continuing to walk. He follows, grinning, and catches her up quickly. “You’d better respect me, young man, I’m your landlady.”

His smile shrinks. “Not anymore,” he reminds her gently.

Margaret looks at him and suddenly finds herself resolved. “I haven’t let you off your lease yet. Where’s a bench?”

John frowns, still smiling slightly. “Margaret, the store is closed. I don’t think it works like that anymore.”

She waves a hand. “Maybe not. Oh, this will have to do.” John allows her to pull him by the hoodie sleeve onto the bench of an empty bus stop just outside the park gates. “Now,” Margaret says, turning to him but looking down at the flower in her fingers. “I am told that you could go on running the stores if there was an investment in it - right? Oh, I really ought to do this with lawyers-”

John takes her hand gently, making her look up at him. “You know best, Margaret. It’s your money.”

She closes her eyes and nods, oddly comforted by his large hand cradling her own. “Yes. Yes. I have some money - too much. I have no idea what to do with it - and I thought, I could invest some in you. Your business, I mean. To support it.”

When she looks up, John is looking at her like she hung the stars purely for his benefit. “You would do that?” he asks, almost whispering as if loud words would scare the very idea away.

She nods. “So many jobs are on the line. And I’m sure the interest rate would be much better.”

John squeezes her hand. She’d forgotten he was holding it, but it gives her more comfort than it has any right to. “Thank you,” he breathes. Margaret tightens her grip on him slightly, eyes fluttering between their joined hands and the flower in her lap and his face, close and sweet and earnest. His head tilts slightly, looking at her with piercing seriousness that keeps her perfectly still, heart fluttering.

There is a great hissing to her left and she jumps, flinching back. The doors of the bus open and the driver looks at them expectantly. Margaret drops his hand to better wave at the driver in both dismissal and apology. He huffs and pulls away in a cacophony of hydraulics.

The whole exchange cannot have taken more than half a minute, but their quiet little moment where so much might have happened is gone, lost, and Margaret tucks her hands into the fabric of her skirt.

“You will take back Marlborough Stores, then?” she asks eventually.

John’s grin bubbles up, uncontrollable. “Absolutely, business partner.”

* * *

John insists that Margaret come to Marlborough Stores’ second opening. It’s nothing grand, because the Thorntons can’t quite bear to acknowledge the small hiccup in their linear success story that is the ignominious and complete closure of their business and subsequent rescue, but a fair few locals have shown up to investigate and all the old staff are back.

“Miss Hale!”

She beams. “Nicholas! How are you?”

He returns her smile with full force. “Much better for being back at work, miss. Bessy’s out back, but she’ll come out an’ see you.”

“How are the children?”

Nicholas’ smile turns fond and proud. “My Mary’s got a cooking ‘prenticeship, and the Boucher kids are doin’ their homework more or less on time and I’ll call that success.”

Margaret grins. “That’s wonderful. I’m glad they’re still fostered with you.”

Higgins stuffs his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I fought hard enough to have them when their parents passed; I’ll not let them go now.” He frowns at her. “I was sorry to hear about what ‘appened. They were good folk.”

She smiles tightly. “They were. Do you know where I might find Mr Thornton?”

He nods behind him. “In his office, like as not.”

She raps on the door twice and lets herself in. John looks up and smiles. “Margaret. You came. Did you see Higgins?”

She nods. “I did. I’m glad his family are well.”

“Me, too, though I’ll be glad when Tommy’s SATs are over.” She raises an eyebrow and he rolls his eyes, amused. “It’s been a long time since I forgot how to teach times tables.”

“And how did you end up doing that?” Margaret grins.

He scratches his head sheepishly. “I think almost everyone did, in the end. But I’m not so scary as I’d thought, apparently.”

She laughs at the mental image of Tommy presenting John with his textbook, little face determined in the face of John’s deer-in-the-headlights confusion.

He smiles up at her, boyishly charming for all his grown-up paperwork. “It’s nice to have you back, Margaret.”

“It’s nice to be back,” she says, looking around his office to lessen the intensity. “And it’s nice to have this place going again. I’m already enjoying being your boss, Mr Thornton.” She grins and leaves him to his paperwork, missing his suddenly thoughtful expression.

* * *

Margaret is a very hands-off boss, like Mr Bell before her, though more because she’s unqualified than because she’s lazy. Besides, she’s got a million and one things to do: manage the sale of her parents’ house and things, and of Mr Bell’s rooms in Oxford, and learn to control her estate, and try to get some freelance journalism in.

Still, she’d hoped - perhaps - it was so silly, but-

She hasn’t seen John Thornton for more than two minutes together in two weeks.

“And why should that matter?” Bessy says, arch and teasing.

“It shouldn’t - doesn’t,” Margaret says, rather crossly. “Only - I thought - at the bus stop-”

“You thought something might happen,” her friend says, catching the spiralling train of Margaret’s thought and pinning it down. Margaret groans in confirmation and flops backwards onto her bed. Bessy, cross-legged at the head, raises a brow. “You told me you didn’t want a relationship just now. Don’t go telling me that was just to avoid the nice lad I had lined up for you.”

“It wasn’t _just_ to avoid him. I’m sure he’s lovely,” she adds as an afterthought, still flat on her back. “But I hate to think we can’t be friends because I-”

“Essentially own him?”

Margaret sits up and throws a pillow at Bessy, who ducks easily. “Well, yes. But better put!” she says, trying not to smile as Bessy laughs. “You’re a terrible confidante.”

“Because I tell you the truth?” She rolls her eyes and flicks an M&M into the air, catching it in her mouth. Bessy crunches the sweet and Margaret patiently waits for her next piece of wisdom. “What do you want, Margaret?”

This stumps her rather unexpectedly. “Oh, well. To be friends, I suppose; I hate to think he - doesn’t like me, suddenly.”

“And?”

Margaret groans, smothering it in a pillow. “I don’t know! Maybe - something - but.”

Bessy nods. “It’s not a good time.”

“But it wouldn’t hurt to see him, sometimes, would it? Just to talk. As friends.”

Her friend shrugs. “That’s something you’ll have to work out with him.

Margaret emerges from the pillow, narrowing her eyes. “Then what was the point of this?”

Bessy grins. “No idea. I thought it was to feed me chocolate - and if so-” She offers two thumbs up. “-you’re nailing it.”

* * *

“John!”

He spins, eyes wide in surprise and almost taking out an entire display. Margaret puts on a burst of speed, very nearly jogging down the aisle, and puts her hand on his arm to stop him running away. She can feel the heat of his skin through his shirtsleeve, muscles tense under her fingertips.

“Miss Hale,” he says, apparently unable to do much else. Then he pulls himself together. “Can I do something for you?”

Margaret smiles in a way which she hopes is friendly and relaxing and will magically convince him to acquiesce. “I was wondering if we could look over the month’s reports over lunch. If you’ve time, of course.”

John blinks, corner of his mouth reflexively curving up in response to her bright smile. “The - the reports. Yes - I mean-” he breaks himself off, smile retracting behind a facade of calmness that smacks of sadness. “I’m afraid I’m too busy today, Miss Hale.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Margaret says, determined. She resists the urge to fold her arms.

He ducks his head and shakes her hand loose. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

She watches him beat a hasty retreat and fails to not take it personally.

* * *

Margaret goes for brunch with Fanny - now Mrs Watson - at a fancy new bistro with exposed floorboards and copper piping. It’s ridiculously overpriced and Fanny absolutely _insists_ upon paying for them both with her husband’s new wealth.

Margaret sips the bizarre coffee-adjacent concoction she’d ordered and tries not to wince too obviously. Baffled by the menu and appalled by the prices, she’d simply asked for whatever it was that Fanny was having rather than get the tea she really wanted and risk accusations that she thought the Watsons couldn’t afford better. It turns out, however, that the collection of words Fanny had given, rapid-fire, to the poor barista taste rather horrible when mixed together.

“I’m so glad to see you taking on the vegan and lactose-free diet, Margaret,” Fanny says enthusiastically. Margaret hums in what she hopes sounds like pleasant agreement and secretly wonders if all soy drinks taste this god-awful. “It’s done wonders for my husband, I’m sure, but John would have none of it.” Margaret hides a smile in a sip of her vile drink; she can just imagine his face, chiseled from unamused stone as his little sister does her best to get him in on the latest fashionable fad. Fanny sighs. “But he’s so terribly grumpy these days.”

Margaret raises an eyebrow. “Is he? What for?”

Fanny rolls her eyes, waving a hand dismissively in a way that best displays her truly enormous diamond engagement ring. “I’m sure I don’t know, he never tells me anything. But I overheard,” Fanny says, leaning in and stage-whispering for a conspiratorial effect but absolutely no change in volume, “him and Mother talking - something about workplace relationships.” She leans back, satisfied with Margaret’s astonished expression.

Margaret grapples briefly with her morals. Curiosity joins forces with concealed jealousy and beats her abhorrence of gossip. “Do you know who?”

Fanny shakes her head, irritated to be unable to keep the gossip going. Margaret leans back in her seat, thinking hard - John, in love with one of his employees! She’ll have to ask Bessy what she thinks, who it might be, if John goes on break _coincidentally at the same time_ as anyone…

Because he’s her friend. And she wants to know for purely friendly reasons.

She can already hear Bessy laughing at her.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she lets Fanny’s chatter wash over her and tries not to spit her coffee out.

* * *

“Honestly, Margaret, I just don’t know,” Bessy says for what is probably the millionth time from her place on her friend’s bed, eating more of Margaret’s food.

“It must be someone!” Margaret says, pacing at the foot of the bed. “And I’m determined to find out.”

“Why?” Bessy says, a sly edge to her tone. “Why do you care about finding out?”

Margaret pauses in her pacing, and resumes when she’s thought of an answer. “Because I’m a journalist, and it’s what I do.”

Bessy gives her a distinctly unimpressed look, powerful enough to stop her pacing altogether and twine her fingers in knots.

“Because we’re friends?” she tries. _Not because I want to be with him. Not because I’m jealous. I’m not. Why should I care if he likes someone else?_

Bessy sighs. “Oh, leave your hands alone; your knuckles are white and if you break them I won’t take you to accident and emergency.” Margaret tucks her hands behind her back and Bessy looks at her assessingly. “Margaret, just ask him,” she says seriously. “If it _is_ only for those reasons, you can just ask.”

She squirms. “I can’t admit I’ve been gossiping about him with his sister!”

Bessy rolls her eyes. “Yes, you can!”

There is a long silence. “I still think it’s Anne Lattimer,” Margaret says, decisive and almost petulant.

Bessy groans and flops forward into the mattress.

* * *

Margaret wakes, abruptly, in the middle of the night, indistinct images seemingly burnt into her eyelids: of John’s hands on someone else, his lips brushing tenderly over a face she can’t recognise, reverentially murmuring a name that she can’t hear but knows is not her own against sweat-soaked skin.

She rolls over and sleeps fitfully; restless, cross and confused.

* * *

“Hi, John,” she says, pushing the door to the stores open.

He looks up from behind the front desk. “Oh, hello, Margaret. This - I’m just locking up, actually.” John shows her the key in his hand, as if she might not believe him, and goes back to fussing behind the desk.

“I know. I’ll wait.” Margaret hops a little to perch on the edge of the desk, legs swinging. He huffs a laugh like he can’t help it, ducking away to hide it, and she narrows her eyes. “What?”

He offers her a tiny grin, rounding the desk and sitting beside her - achieving what she had done with a jump by simply rising onto his toes a little.

She laughs at his teasing silence. “Show off,” she grumbles without heat. “We don’t all have mile-long legs.”

John ducks his head again, smiling. “No. Anyway, it’s sweet how your feet can’t touch the floor, like a little child-” She smacks his arm, fighting giggles, and he breaks off into laugher.

“It’s the desk’s fault, really. Terrible height.” She sniffs officiously and he laughs again. “You’re horrid,” she tells him. “I could fire you, you know.”

His smile loses its brightness. “Now who’s the Dickensian master of cruel and arbitrary employment practises?”

Margaret frowns slightly at his suddenly rather miserable attempt at cheer. “Fancy getting some dinner when you’re done here?” John looks up in surprise and she nudges his shoulder. “You can tell me about the girlfriend Bessy thinks you have,” she says, cheerfully throwing her friend under the bus.

John shakes his head with a tight smile. “No girlfriend.”

“Just dinner, then,” Margaret presses, itching to reach out and grab his hand. He gives her an intense look and her belly swoops rather disconcertingly.

He lets out one long, shaky breath, staring at the floor between his feet. “No, Margaret,” he says, low enough to almost be a whisper.

Margaret finds herself suddenly angry, fingers gripping the edge of the desk tightly. “Why not? You’ve been avoiding me ever since you started work again - and don’t say you’ve been busy, Nicholas says you’re round his to help Tommy almost every night. What-” her voice falters and she tries again, angrier than before. “What did I do?”

He looks up at her in surprise. “Nothing. You’ve not - it’s not-”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” Margaret says, one unimpressed eyebrow raised.

John offers her an awkward fake smile. “I mean - yes.”

Margaret folds her arms. Her fury must show on her face because he leans back slightly. “What, so I start liking you and you suddenly conclude you don’t like me anymore?”

He blinks at her. “What?” he breathes.

She mentally reviews her sentence and suddenly looks away and ahead of her, unseeing. “Oh. I - uh. I like you. That’s a thing.”

He frowns, fighting his mouth as it tries to curve into a smile. “Did you - did you just figure that out?”

Margaret frowns at the floor. “Yes.” Out of the corner of her eye she sees him close his eyes and smile, ever so briefly and sweetly. And now, of course, she knows what the odd warmth that suffuses her is. “It’s true, though. I do like you.” She looks back at him. John doesn’t look thrilled, though, and Margaret starts to feel gut-twistingly nervous. “Thoughts? Views? Opinions?”

He gives her the briefest glimpse of a smile. “I still can’t go to dinner with you.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

Margaret goes back to glaring at him. “And how did you figure that out?”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate. You are, technically, my boss.” He traces little circles on the floor with the toe of one shoe, watching its progress rather than her face. “There would be a - conflict of interests. What if you had to fire me?”

“I’m not going to fire you,” she says with dead certainty.

He shrugs. “Maybe, in the future. Business is never certain, Margaret.”

“And you don’t believe I could be sufficiently disinterested?” She nudges his shoulder again. “You’re sure you’d be _that_ charming that I’d let you run the careers of your employees into the ground?” He smiles a little, but sadly.

“I owe you too much already, Margaret. I don’t deserve a second chance with you.”

She shrugs. “You pay for dinner, and we can call it even.” John laughs, odd and tight, and she leans into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m not counting, John.”

“You’re sure you want this?” he says, voice a little wobbly. She nods against his shoulder and he gasps, turning to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in the crook of her neck.

Margaret returns his grip equally tight, back awkwardly twisted but not even thinking of moving until his shoulders have stopped trembling. “It’s alright,” she mumbles into his hair and the collar of his shirt. “It’s alright.”

“I thought I’d never - you’d never-” he says, voice muffled by her shoulder and tight with emotion. “I-” He pulls back, slipping off the desk so they aren’t precariously balanced, and looks her in the eyes, hands bracketing her shoulders. “I like you very much, Margaret Hale.”

She beams within the safe haven of his arms. “I like you very much too, John Thornton.” Margaret wraps her fingers around one strong arm and presses her lips to his wrist.

This breaks whatever resolve he’s been holding on to for all this time and he moves forward, one strong hand coming up to cradle her jaw ever so gently as he brushes his lips over her own. Margaret’s hands come to rest naturally on his chest, feeling his heartbeat rush and stumble as she draws his lower lip between her teeth. Her stomach swoops pleasantly as he moves forward again, standing between her legs and pressing their chests together, and she can’t help but smile against his lips.

John pulls away slightly, rubbing a thumb over her cheekbone absently as he gazes at her in wonderment. Margaret laughs with the sheer giddy joy of it all and wraps her arms around his neck. “I’ll have to take back what I said to Bessy about not wanting a relationship,” she sighs, grin belying her feigned crossness.

He chuckles and presses his forehead against hers, fingers tangling pleasantly in her hair. “And what you said about this desk. Think of the neck pain.”

She pats the desk beside her. “It’s the best desk in the whole wide world.”

John laughs again, bright and happy, and she bathes in its warmth. “Dearest Margaret,” he says, like he can’t believe his luck, and she knows that feeling. He kisses her again and her toes curl with delight.

“Come on,” she says at last. “You still owe me dinner.”

“I thought we weren’t counting,” he says, voice low and rumbly, sending shivers down her spine and her thoughts to - other things.

“I suppose we could go home instead,” Margaret says, pretending to mull it over, and then squeaking when John picks her up easily and carries her toward the doors.

She’s too busy laughing to be even slightly annoyed.


End file.
